Improving PCE in Low Input Power Level RF Energy Harvesting using Sinc-like Waveforms

Abstract

This paper presents a solution to improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of RF-to-dc conversion circuits especially when dealing with low RF power levels. It simply consists on the use of sinc-like Waveforms as a power optimized waveform (POW). The proposed approach is tested and validated in the case of a wide input power range rectifier using Software Defined Radio (SDR) to generate and transmit waveforms. For a PCE higher than 50%, the obtained results show an input power range of [-15 dBm to 19 dBm] in the case of sinc-like waveforms compared to [-10 dBm to 20 dBm] when using standard continuous waveforms (CW).